(MY) palm oil claims

[Guest guest]

Tuesday June 19, 2007 - The Star

 

Chin refutes palm oil lies

 

By STEPHEN THEN

 

MIRI: Environmental activists in the West are spreading

misconceptions, distorted views and wrong information about Malaysia's

plantation and agriculture industries.

 

Some of the information being circulated were so absurd, said

Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah

Kui.

 

He led a high-powered delegation to Europe last week to counter

anti-palm oil lobbyists and found that the propaganda being spread by

Western NGOs were far from the real situation in Malaysia.

 

He said the Malaysian delegation met MPs, ministers, NGO

representatives and palm oil critics in Britain, Belgium and Holland

to explain the situation in Malaysia.

 

A World Wildlife Fund scientist working in Sabah and Sarawak followed

the delegation to give WWF's opinion on the issues, he added.

 

Chin also had face-to-face interviews with the Western media –

including the BBC and the Daily Telegraph Environment.

 

He said the Western governments acknowledged that palm oil was good

for food and for fuel, but they wanted to be certain that our palm oil

and related products were from sustainable sources.

 

The Malaysian delegation had to take great pains to correct these

inaccuracies, Chin told a press conference here yesterday.

 

" For example, the Western NGOs keep saying that Malaysia fell trees

all the time in our plantations.

 

" This is not true because oil palm trees are productive up to 25

years, while rubber trees can produce latex for 35 years.

 

" Our timber trees take decades to mature, so how can we be chopping

down trees every year? " he asked.

 

Other claims made by the West include:

 

# AGRICULTURE and plantation development in Malaysia and Indonesia

contributes to 35% of the world's greenhouse gas emission.

 

Chin asked: " How can this be? Can our agriculture projects be more

polluting than the heavy industries in America, Europe, China and

India and the millions of vehicles there?;

 

# ORANGUTANS all over Malaysia are being killed by our palm oil projects.

 

Chin said: " This is not true because the orangutans are only found in

Borneo, and in those areas in Sarawak and Sabah where they live, great

efforts are made to protect them; and

 

# MALAYSIA and Indonesia have the same system in land clearing and

plantation development.

 

Chin said: " This is absolutely untrue. Malaysia and Indonesia are

different countries, adhering to different policies and ways of

development. "

 

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# Wednesday June 20, 2007 - The Star

 

Forests not cleared for oil palm

 

KUALA LUMPUR: Virgin forests are not cleared to make way for oil palm

plantations, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk

Peter Chin Fah Kui yesterday.

 

Instead, he said, the production of palm oil in Malaysia was done in a

sustainable manner.

 

Through its research and development (R & D) efforts, Malaysia had

developed environmentally-friendly practices in oil palm management

and production, he said during the opening of the Oil Palm Industry in

Malaysia seminar yesterday.

 

" As a policy, we do not develop (the plantations) from virgin forests.

The cultivation is concentrated in logged-over areas. When palm oil

became more profitable due to the low prices of rubber in the last

three decades, we merely converted rubber estates into oil palm

plantations, " he said.

 

Opening of new land was kept to a bare minimum, said Chin whose speech

was read out by Malaysian Palm Oil Board deputy director general Dr

Choo Yuen May.

 

Chin said efforts to tarnish the image of palm oil on nutritional

grounds in the 1980s were unsuccessful because of scientific findings

in favour of palm oil obtained from renowned R & D institutions

worldwide.

 

In recent times, the industry faced negative publicity again due to

opposition to the opening of new oil palm plantations, he said.

 

" There is pressure for green and sustainable production of palm oil

and this must be seriously looked into, " he said.

 

Chin said the Government had set a 35:25 vision, which referred to

production yield of 35 tonnes of oil palm fresh fruit bunches per

hectare per year and 25% oil extraction rate by 2020.